I always enjoy visiting Austin, Texas. Oklahoma, the textbook example of a flyover state, doesn’t have a ton of trendy destinations within driving distance or options for nonstop flights. Thankfully, Austin manages to be both drivable and nonstop flyable! My college roommate moved there after graduating college in 2015 and every year since I make a conscious effort to visit her and explore the city… except the years the pandemic halted all travel plans.
My best friend is getting married this fall. When we talked about destinations for her bachelorette party we tossed around a couple of ideas; a cruise, staying local, etc. Ultimately, Austin won!
Thursday
I arrived a day before the celebration formally began to avoid flight delays and cancellations. In addition to dodging those hurdles, I now had a day dedicated to catching up with my college roommate. She is currently in South Austin, so we decided on Cypress Grill for dinner. If you’re in the area, you need to eat here at least once, especially if you love Cajun food. Since it’s in a retail area, it’d be a great way to end a shopping trip and parking is plentiful. There was a wait to sit inside but we were starving so we chose to be seated outside (yes, in the 100+ degree heat). I got the shrimp & grits, and all I can say is yum.
Friday
I got a few hours for office work done Friday morning, then set about the real work of assembling all the bachelorette effects: banners, inflatable cooler, and hangover kits, of course. Unfortunately, our Airbnb didn’t let us check-in until 4pm so we used that time to acquire last-minute provisions. I ordered appropriately themed cookies from Hayley’s Cookies and Cakes and they are worth every penny. She has a repository of cookies that she’s previously done or you can I feared they’d be too sweet but they were just right. I ordered them a week ahead, scheduled to pick up on the second day of the bachelorette weekend, and were ready right on time. My Austin friend is obsessed with these cookies and demanded to see them multiple times before returning to the Airbnb!. Next we visited Ohemgee Squee. I’d never heard of the place but the owner was in the cast of Season 6 of Queer Eye. It’s a small space but there is additional outdoor searching at the front. They serve drinks and macaroons and of course donuts so we naturally picked up a few while we were there…which came in handy later. Who knew blowing up balloons would be such hard work?
From there we headed over to the Airbnb, it was only about a 2 minute drive from Ohemgee Squee. The Airbnb is super cute and spacious. There were 3 bedrooms and 3 bath and it was located in a quiet area but also a short drive to some popular Austin areas. I highly recommend this place for other bachelorette parties or if you have a big group. It has a max capacity of 8 people. When we got to the Airbnb we went to work! I ordered most of the decorations through Amazon to make my life a bit easier and just had everything delivered to my friend down in Austin. I mainly got a lot of balloons so we inflated those. If you’re going to do that then I highly recommend you getting a balloon pump. I’m sure that it cut our inflating time in half as my friend and I apparently don’t know how to blow balloons…I know, weird. Everything finally came together in a couple of hours and then the rest of the party showed up. The ladies looked around and saw all the decorations and then quickly got ready to go to do bat kayaking. I stayed behind so that I could finish decorating for the weekend but they had a blast! After a day of traveling and preparing for the weekend it was time to chill and have a girls night in. We did a sleepover with Velvet Taco’s ordered in and a couple of games. Not everyone in the party knew each other so it was a good ice breaker and just a nice way to begin the weekend. If you need suggestions for games, these are the two that I brought:
Saturday
Saturday everyone woke up that morning and we lounged around for a couple of hours while eating donuts and drinking mimosas. Ohemgee Squee donuts are good for a couple of days as long as you leave them out on the counter, don’t refrigerate them. I got a dozen of the variety pack and they were a hit! Unfortunately I don’t remember what flavors I received in the box. They don’t put labels in the box so we were flying from the hip.
After we all recovered from breakfast we put our swimsuits on and headed out to Barton Springs. If you’ve never been to Barton Springs its a natural water spring located in Austin so it’s perfect for a hot summer day. We got there around 1 in the afternoon and it was busy. There was one food truck and a concession stand so we grabbed food from the food truck and ate it outside the entrance before we walked in. You aren’t allowed to bring food or coolers into Barton Springs. Typically you have to pay to get in but for some reason they were offering free admission to everyone, yay! It was hard to find a shady spot but thankfully after some searching we were able to find some shade and relax.
Night out in Austin!
After some fun in the sun it’s time to relax and get ready for dinner and drinks. We started at Whisler’s. Super close to our Airbnb so we grabbed an Uber and headed out. We made reservations at a Buenos Aires Cafe. It was a 10 minute walk from Whisler’s..maybe not the best decision in the heat and with some ladies in heels but it honestly wasn’t terrible. Or you could take a 2 minute Uber. We did make a reservation here a couple of days beforehand so I highly recommend you do that if you go here over the weekend. The place is small so it was pretty packed when we walked in around 7:30. Most of the table ordered a shepard’s pie and wow, it was amazing. It’s a super heavy meal though so we did all have the meat sweats from not fully cooling down from the walk over. The good thing about Buenos Aires Cafe is that it’s off of East 6th Street so there are a ton of chill and trendy bars nearby that are walkable.
Here’s a list of what we went to:
- Whisler’s – linked above
- The Rooftop at East Austin Hotel
- Shangri-La Bar
- Ah Sing Den
After East 6th Street we went over to dirty six because it’s not a trip down to Austin without going to dirty six. This is the place to be for a bachelorette party honestly! Clubs were letting us go ahead of line. Giving us free bottles of champagne. Letting the bride to be dance on the bar. It was epic and totally made the bachelorette weekend! I saw a couple other bachelorette parties while we were there. It was also pride weekend/week while we were there. I think because of the heat it was a bit quieter when we first got there but as time went on the people started coming out. After a couple of bars the bride was ready to chill out for a bit so we headed over to Kitty Cohen’s. It was absolutely dead when we got there. Maybe 8 other people in the entire place. It was nice because we could decompress before heading back to the Airbnb and we could actually enjoy the bar! It has a pool in the middle of the outside part of the bar so the bride could stick her feet in and relax. After about an hour it was time to head back home.
Sunday
Sunday was the end to an incredible weekend. We cleaned up the Airbnb and headed over to Eberly’s for the final meal. This place is adorable with a garden room in the center of the restaurant. Food was good and decently priced. They have valet for parking so no issues with that thankfully.
Overall, Austin was a great location for a bachelorette trip. I highly recommend you go here for a girls trip, bachelor trip, or a quick weekend getaway. It’s decently priced and there are a ton of activities that are available for any sort of vacation. Maybe don’t go in August because of the heat but fall, spring, and winter might be better options 🙂